


Bone Yard

by xzombiexkittenx



Series: Charnel House [1]
Category: Dexter (TV), Hannibal (TV)
Genre: AU after Buffet Froid, AU after Waiting to Exhale, Cannibalism, Canon Typical Violence, I get all my medical facts from the internet, Murder, Sassy CSI, Serial Killers, Showtime levels of swearing, Someone Helps Will Graham, but no one saves will graham, canon typical creepiness, crude sexual humour, swiggty swag the nightmare stag, the bay harbor butcher, the chesapeake ripper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-08
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-11 12:45:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1173224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xzombiexkittenx/pseuds/xzombiexkittenx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a serial killer in Miami and the Feds send Jack Crawford and his dream team down to catch the so-called Bay Harbor Butcher.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

They’ve only been in Miami for a few hours, going directly from airport, to car, to Miami Metro PD’s new war room. Already Will’s flannel shirt – admittedly a mistake – is soaked with sweat, stuck to his back and bunching uncomfortably under his arms. He feels weighted down with the heat, feverish and breakable. Hannibal, on the other hand, is wearing a cream-coloured linen suit that ought to look ridiculous, but doesn’t. He doesn’t have a hair out of place.

Jack strides to the front of the room where boards of corpses wait for them. There are so many bodies in so many pieces. Will can’t help but take it all in: Men, women, all ages, white, black, Latin, Asian…It’s like looking at the Ripper cases all over again, trying to find motive amongst the wreckage. There’s a migraine waiting for him as soon as he crashes. It feels like he’s burning to death, even inside, out of the sun, the heat is too much.

Will’s certain that Jack requested the case. The Feds could have sent anyone and Jack rarely goes so far afield. Hell, Lundy was in the area and could easily make the trip. But Jack’s wondering if they might just have found out where the Chesapeake Ripper spends the rest of his time.

It’s not the Ripper. The bodies weren’t displayed. The bodies are dismembered for transportation, not for flesh or organ removal. Sure, some of the organs are missing, but not with any consistency. Looks more as though any missing pieces are due to the watery burial the bodies were given. Whoever the Bay Harbor Butcher is, it is not the same man as the Chesapeake Ripper. He told Jack as much, but had been ignored.

“Holy fucking shitballs,” a young woman says under her breath as Jack passes her. “That’s the fucking Guru, are you shitting me?” She’s tall and alarmingly slim. Muscle and bone. A runner of some kind. Local detective. Will doesn’t make it as far as her face; she’s bleeding out emotion all over the room and he’s exhausted enough already without knowing what’s wrong with her. 

Will lurks at the back of the room, desperately hoping to avoid attention. Price, Zeller, and Katz are at the side of the room where Jack can introduce them without too much effort. Hannibal is next to Will which, while reassuring, also means that most people who glance in their direction are looking at Hannibal, not at him. Hannibal’s too smart not to know that’s the case. Will wants to thank him but he can’t think of a way that isn’t awkward as fuck.

“All right,” Captain Mathstor says, “the Bay Harbor Butcher case is now a Miami Metro case, and it is shaping up to be the biggest one in our history, now with fourteen confirmed. The FBI has sent over their top man, Special Agent Jack Crawford, to help solve this crime.” 

Jack doesn’t wait for him to finish whatever little speech Mathstor had prepared.

“The Bay Harbor Butcher’s dropped a lot of bodies on your doorstep but he was never expecting them to be found. That means he missed something and we’re going to find it. This sort of case is going to require not only the hard work of the crime lab, profilers, and detectives, but good old-fashioned policing. A case like this is bad for the city, people are going to get panicky, copy cats will emerge, crackpots will call your phone at all hours. So we need everyone out there, keeping this city safe. I’m putting a task force together, but the rest of you will need to be clearing cases as usual and sifting through the mountains of bullshit I’m sure are headed our way.” Jack glares at the room as though daring anyone to have any questions. There’s an almost imperceptible murmur but that’s it.

“Will,” Jack says beckoning. “Everyone this is Special Agent Will Graham. Before we get into it I’d like to take a minute to dispel some rumours. Will’s going to explain why this isn’t the Ice Truck Killer’s bone yard.”

Will freezes, caught, as everyone turns in their chairs to peer at him. His mouth is desperately dry. “Um,” he says, shoulders up as he makes his way to the front of the room. “The, uh, Ice Truck Killer didn’t have such diverse victims for starters. At this point the only serial killer, or mass murderer we’ve seen with a victim pool this big is the Ripper. So. Also, the Ice Truck Killer exsanguinated his –” 

The skinny woman with the foul mouth looks stricken. She’s grieving in half a dozen different ways and they’re battering at Will. He takes his glasses off, staring at them, at the desk, at anything else.

“And the Ripper doesn’t do that with any consistency,” Will finishes awkwardly.

He catches Hannibal’s eye. Hannibal nods slightly, encouraging. But encouraging like Will is actually doing well, and Hannibal is proud of him, not like Will’s a sweaty mess. He is a rock in the middle of a drowning pool of other people’s emotions. Will takes a deep breath and finds he can continue.

“Admittedly, all three have markers in common. The Butcher is a white male in his thirties or forties. Like the Ice Truck killer and the Ripper, he won’t be found living in his grandmother’s basement, torturing small animals. He holds a respectable job, he is pleasant to his neighbours, his colleagues like him. It’s possible that he has a family, or a lover. He’s able to sustain close relationships, so don’t just look for loners, or single men.”

He put his glasses back on with a shaking hand. The Ripper still stalks through his dreams, breath steaming in the cold air, hoof-beats crunching through the snow. He doesn’t understand it. This isn’t how he sees the design. He is the hunter, not the hunted. But the stag with the raven’s feathers, the beast with blood tipped antlers…Will runs and runs, but it follows patiently. It’s so hard to see the Ripper with his animal avatar in the way. He can’t see past it to see the man. Can’t see the man with a job, and people who would think him their friend.

They’re not here to talk about the Ripper though. He tries to focus on the Butcher.

“But no matter how many close relationships he has, no matter how elegant his deception, this is a disguise, a clever mask he wears to conceal that there is something very wrong. He is always hungry because he is hollow. Whatever combination of genetics and trauma carved out that vital part, he tries to fill it with the death of others. This doesn’t work, and so he hones his design, but each time he improves he also sets a new bar. The Ripper has to do more to get the same satisfaction. He escalates because there is nothing else he can do. He is bored. However, the Bay Harbor Butcher uses it to soothe whatever troubles him. Murder, the rituals he goes through, it’s…it’s his paddle. His lighthouse in the storm.

“Whatever justification the Butcher uses – and there is a justification, how he chooses his victims – he was convinced of its truth. It was the part that survived the underlying trauma; if he kills just so then what happened to him is manageable. But over the years the justification became less important. Now he kills because he likes it. It is an addiction he has no intention of trying to kick. He couldn’t, if he wanted to, but that doesn’t matter because he doesn’t want to. He will continue to kill people until he is caught.”

The room is silent. Will trembles under their scrutiny. 

He looks up, but Hannibal isn’t there. Panicked, he looks around and finds Hannibal has moved to be at his elbow. Within reach but not so close that Will feels smothered.

Outside the war room the ravenstag, the Ripper, paces through the halls. Will realises that he isn’t afraid of it any more. He’s afraid of his hallucinations because this is what it feels like to lose your mind, but the actual beast has never tried to hurt him.

Will turns to the boards, looks at the pictures of all the bodies. He lets the Butcher in. “I’m not a showman,” he mutters, “I’m exposed and I don’t…” 

Hannibal’s hand brushes against his elbow and Will shocks back into himself. He gulps air. “The Butcher isn’t a showman, something our other friends have in common. This was never meant to be found. His kills are private, secretive. I don’t…”

Water pours out of the walls and no one else sees it so he’s going crazy. He’s losing it in front of a room full of detectives, all staring at him.

He hears Hannibal saying his name. Feels cools hands against his face and forehead.

“I can’t see,” Will gasps. “I can’t see.”


	2. Chapter 2

One of the innumerable benefits to working with the FBI is that Hannibal gets to hear everyone talk about his extra-curricular hobby. Hannibal doesn’t consider himself to be especially narcissistic, for a serial killer, but it’s positively _stimulating_ when Will gets going.

He’s not pleased about the seizure. Will is grey-faced and shaking and Hannibal manages not to sigh. He would have preferred to let the encephalitis run its course, but they have an audience and Hannibal is not about to see his reputation as a doctor, as a psychiatrist, and as Will’s safe haven threatened. If he plays this right he won’t get to see the outcome of Will’s disease, but he will get to play the hero. It’s a rather unique opportunity in and of itself.

He rides with Will in the ambulance. “Call ahead,” he says. “Tell them to prepare steroids and intravenous immunoglobulin. We need to test the patient for anti-NMDAR encephalitis.”

The medic is unimpressed. “Uh-huh,” she says, prepping a saline drip. “Who are you?”

Hannibal is surprised by Will’s voice. “You figured it out?” he rasps. “I thought it was all in my head.”

Hannibal weighs his options and then takes Will’s hand in his. “You had a seizure, do you remember?” Will shakes his head but he doesn’t take his hand back. “I never considered this diagnosis because eighty percent of people with this are women and it most often stems from ovarian cancer.”

He doesn’t need to ask Will to smile because Will does it on his own. “I can see why that would be confusing,” Will says.

“Stop talking,” the medic says, tugging Will’s oxygen mask back up over his face. Will flinches back, just a little, from her hands.

Hannibal would like to add her to his rolodex but resigns himself to disappointment. He’s not travelling to Miami in order to kill someone he can’t even eat. There’s no way he’s driving across that many state lines with human remains in his trunk. Also, Florida has the death penalty. Unless there’s a conference. Hannibal adjusts Will’s oxygen mask so it sits more comfortably. If there’s a conference for him to attend he could take a little time off for this woman. He could probably make a half-decent steak or two. And then back to Baltimore.

Will’s hand grips his a little more tightly as the ambulance parks at Miami Central Hospital. His eyes are wide and a little panicked.

“Don’t worry,” Hannibal says. “We will have no more problems. I will stay with you.” Will’s relief is delightful.

“Patient’s name is Will Graham,” Hannibal says to the waiting doctor. “His temperature is one hundred and five degrees. He suffered a mild seizure and has been experiencing symptoms that presented as purely psychological. Anxiety and psychosis – including delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized behaviour. Previous tests revealed no anomalous results but after this episode I suspect that anti-NMDAR encephalitis is the cause.”

“Five minutes on Web MD and everyone thinks they’re a doctor,” the doctor mutters. “Who are you?”

There are a lot of unpleasant people in Miami. Hannibal does not have time for this nonsense. “Doctor Lecter,” he says and watches the man wince a little. “M.D., trauma surgeon, psychiatrist, and this man’s friend. Now, if you please…”

Being someone’s friend does not get you very far. He is informed in no uncertain terms that he may not come along while they run their tests. Hannibal waits outside doors and in uncomfortable chairs while they shuffle Will from department to department. He goes across the street and buys some mediocre coffee. He drinks the coffee while he calls Jack and reassures him. Finally someone seems to remember he exists because a nurse apologizes profusely and shows him to Will’s room.

He is sharing the room with a young man who, if Hannibal isn’t mistaken, is living with AIDS and whose T-cell count dropped. The medication he is now on will work. He is listening to music on his phone and pays no attention to Hannibal at all. On the other side of the green privacy curtain, next to the window, is Will. The steroids, immunosuppressant, and saline are already doing wonders for Will’s complexion. He looks tired, but his eyes are clear. His gratitude is like a living thing and Hannibal feels as though he could take it in his hands and feel its beating heart.

He has had grateful patients before. People whose lives he saved in the ER, people whose mental health he has improved. Other than satisfaction at a job well done, Hannibal has never felt much one way or the other about any of them. Whatever it is that he’s feeling now will need to be examined when he is alone because it’s something new. He hasn’t felt anything new in a very long time. 

Of course, there is still Georgia Madchen to deal with, but she is back in Baltimore and Jack Crawford is less interested in the death of one surgeon than he is about the dozens of bodies that are being pulled out of the harbour. Another agent will be assigned. She will be questioned and without Will or himself there to spark any memories, it is very likely that she will just forget. At any rate, she is not likely to be believed and Hannibal is content to let the whole thing settle.

He is unused to changing his mind, once he has committed to a course of action. The set-up for Will was beautiful and perfect, but there are new options unfolding before him and Hannibal is prepared to take those into account before moving ahead.

Hannibal sits in the visitor’s chair with Will’s chart and scans it. “I admit to being very angry,” he says. “Doctor Sutcliffe should have seen this. I don’t understand how…” His performance of frustration and helplessness is flawless. 

Will shrugs as much as it is possible for someone lying on their backs to shrug. On top of the blanket his hand turns over, palm up. “You found it,” he says. “It doesn’t matter now.” 

Half propped up the way Will is, Hannibal can see the pulse in his throat, steady now, strong. He wants to wound Will. To open him up and understand, the same way that Will is able to see inside him – as the Ripper, yes, but still. He wants to consume him, not because Will is lowly and undeserving, but because he is special and Hannibal wants to keep that with him always.

Hannibal sets the chart down and, just as Will is about to pull his arm back under the blanket, takes Will’s hand again.

“Why wouldn’t they let you through with me?” Will asks. Apparently they are not talking about this.

“I am not your doctor,” Hannibal says. “Not in any official capacity. Neither am I family, therefore I must wait.”

“You’re not my psychiatrist either,” Will says in neutral tones, eyes fixed on the window. It’s hard to tell with the fever, but Hannibal suspects Will might be blushing. “Not in any official capacity. Right? We just have conversations.”

Hannibal knows that this particular path is a minefield. There are a hundred scenarios in which he is caught. There are a hundred scenarios where he loses everything. But as Will pointed out, he is bored. A little danger, a little opportunity to outwit the FBI, to confound the empath…It’s too good to pass up. “I am here for you in whatever capacity you need,” he says and finds that, whatever his motives, his smile is genuine.

“I think I would rather have you for a friend,” Will says. “If you. I don’t. I mean, I do, but not.”

Hannibal raises an eyebrow but doesn’t have the opportunity for speech because Will is sitting up, clutching at his hand like a life-line, and kissing him. Badly.

Bedelia is going to have a fit. Hannibal is rather looking forward to seeing it.

He gently disengages and pushes a curl back from Will’s face. “Tell me again when you are healed,” he says and glances at the privacy curtain. Will takes his meaning, both of them, and lies back. 

Will sighs. “I hate hospitals. I can already taste the powdered potatoes. I would kill for some of your cooking.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Florida Industrial School for Boys at Marianna (Dozier school for boys) is/was a real place. What happened there is horrifying and I in no way intend to make light of it.

I’m exposed and I don’t like it. That’s what special agent basket-case said. He was right.

He saw Dexter. He knew Dexter.

There are profilers and then there’s this guy. Listening to Will talk, Dexter felt as though someone was walking through his life, wearing his clothes, eating at his table. He feels like he’s a ghost in his own life and someone else is wearing his skin. It’s really creepy.

“So much for the fucking ‘dream team,’” Masuka says in the privacy of their lab. “How come no one mentioned that their top guy is a spaz? And I can’t believe they brought in Jimmy Price. That guy is like, _the guy_ for latent prints. If he was a chick, I would totally bang him. Just for his work on the Renmar case. Totally hot.”

“Gross,” Deb says, but she’s smiling. She’s leaning against the door, effectively blocking anyone from walking in unannounced. 

“You think he’s coming back?” Dexter asks. “He looked pretty sick.” He’s not above wishing illness on someone he doesn’t know. Something lingering. It doesn’t have to be fatal, it would just be nice if whatever it was took him out of the game.

Because it’s not a game. It’s Dexter’s life and he’s watching them open it up and put it on morgue trays to examine and pick apart.

“Who knows,” Deb says. “I just want to know if Doctor Hottie is single.”

Dexter’s skin makes a game attempt to crawl right off his body. Because in the midst of everything – the mess with Little Chino, the FBI after him, the epic backlog of spatter he needs to get through (Christ, Miami, could you not murder so many people for five minutes please?) – there’s another problem and now his sister wants to date it.

“Hannibal Lecter,” Masuka says. “Like, come over the mountains on elephants.” Masuka leers at Deb. “You know, you’re welcome to ride my elephant any time.”

“Double gross,” Deb says. “I’ll catch you nerds later.”

“Stay away from Lecter,” Dexter warns. When Deb makes a ‘huh’ face at him he says, “You trust my hunches. Trust this one; he’s trouble.”

Dexter waits until everyone has dispersed and then starts his research. 

Hannibal Lecter. Parents deceased. Sister, younger, deceased. The whole thing shrouded in mystery. He disappears for a number of years until his uncle, one Count Robert Lecter, finds him in an orphanage that has long since been closed. Conditions of the orphanage make the horrors at the Florida Industrial School for Boys at Marianna look tame. 

The Count died, and his wife and Lecter moved to France where Lecter attended boarding school and then at sixteen he was accepted to a prestigious medical school. By all accounts something of a prodigy. Moved to Baltimore, did his residency at Johns Hopkins, and apparently he liked it enough to park his European ass for good. 

Seriously? Who left Paris for Baltimore?

Gave up his job as surgeon and ER doc to go back to school and start shrinking heads.

Mentored the renowned Dr. Alana Bloom. Dexter remembered her from a conference on spotting psychopathology beyond the standard variances. Smart lady. He’d avoided her at all costs, nearly walking into traffic in order to stay out of her line of sight.

Lester wrote an extremely boring paper on social exclusion. Not as boring as Graham’s paper on the standard monograph on time of death by insect activity, but pretty close.

Recently survived an attack that left a patient of his dead of a broken neck. Darling of the Baltimore high society, patron of the arts, and all around stand-up guy.

Dexter closes his computer and stares out of the window without seeing anything. He might not have any evidence but… Doakes slams the door open. Is nowhere sacred? The lab is not the breakroom.

“You got that analysis for me yet?” It sounds more like he’s saying, ‘go die in a fire,’ but Dexter’s used to that by now.

“Yeah, sure.” He digs up the file Doakes is looking for and holds it out. He doesn’t let go when Doakes takes hold of it. “You think there’s something weird about Lecter?” 

“What?” Doakes says. His glare could strip paint. “I think there’s something weird about you. You looking to start a club for creeps?”

Dexter lets go of the file. “So you think he’s creepy?”

“I think you better watch yourself,” Doakes says, helpful as always, and marches back out of the lab.

It’s not exactly a rousing endorsement of his suspicions, but it’ll do for now. He didn’t see Rudy for what he was until it was too late, but this time there’s something telling Dexter that he’s not the biggest predator in the room any more. Well, he is now, but Lecter will be back. Dexter can’t put his finger on it. Maybe it’s the way he never seems to have a facial expression, or how unconcerned he was when his friend had a seizure. Maybe it’s his flat, dead-eyed stare. Maybe it’s nothing, but Dexter has stalked people with less gut feeling to go on. There is something very wrong with Hannibal Lecter, and Dexter wants to know if it’s the same thing that’s wrong with him.

He loses Doakes’ tail by cutting out early and heading over to the shitty motel that the Feds are staying at. Breaking into Lecter’s room is easy enough, but there’s nothing worth looking at, and nothing to prove anything. Lecter’s compulsively tidy and everything on the little desk is at right angles to everything else, but that doesn’t exactly scream ‘psycho killer’ to Dexter.

There are an alarming number of Tupperware containers in the mini-fridge and Dexter begins to suspect Lecter isn’t his sort of person at all. Just a little OCD maybe. Who travels with their own food? It’s not like Florida doesn’t have…

Dexter opens up one of the containers.

Yeah, Florida has lunch meat.

Dexter puts the container back where he found it. He should be worrying about Little Chino, not about some guy whose only offence so far is making his skin crawl. Shockingly enough, that’s not a crime. He’s been off his mark for a while now. The whole thing with Rudy has his head all turned around. Dexter thinks of the vodouist he didn’t manage to kill and wonders again if he might actually be cursed. It’s certainly starting to feel like it.

A key turns in the door and Dexter has just enough time to dodge into the bathroom before Lecter walks in. The only window is about the size of a brick.

This is not good.

Dexter peers out of the bathroom, watching Lecter hang his jacket next to three others that look equally expensive. He packed more Tupperware than he did clothing. Lecter’s head cocks to the side like a bird of prey sighting a mouse.

“You might as well come out,” he says. “I know you’re there and that there isn’t any way out except past me.”

Dexter, gloves stashed in his pocket, sheepishly emerges. “I…uh…” he says. There is no explanation that even remotely explains what he was doing in the room.

“You’re from Miami Metro,” Lecter says. He is placid as still, deep water. “I’m interested as to why a lab tech would be hiding in my bathroom. Perhaps you have a paraphilia, although I am inclined to think not.”

For a moment they just stand there, staring at each other. Then whatever humanity there was in Lecter’s face begins to fade away and Dexter feels like he’s staring into the face of his own Dark Passenger. He doesn’t know what Lecter sees in him, but whatever it is, it’s enough.

“I see,” Lecter says. “Not a paraphilia, but something else. An unorthodox hobby, I would wager.”

It’s been so long since Dexter killed anyone. He feels broken. There is something wrong with him, and he doesn’t know how to fix it, and the fucking FBI is investigating him. “Actually, I’ve been…cutting back.”

Lecter’s eyebrows go up, fractionally.

“Got any free appointments, doc?” Dexter asks.

Lecter pulls out a chair. “Sit.” He opens up the fridge and takes out two pre-prepared meals, one of which he sets in front of Dexter. “Eat.”

It seems a little less likely that they’re about to battle it out, if they’re eating together. It’s been a while since he’s broken bread with another killer. If nothing else, it can’t hurt. Dexter accepts the fork and does as he’s told. It’s good. 

“Now,” Lecter says with a grin like a shark, “tell me what it is you’re hoping to get out of this session.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is literally no reason for me to separate out the chapters like this, but if I don't I'll never write anything because this could be an epic and I can't deal with that right now. Instead, I will work on little bits and hope my offering pleases the AO3 deities.


End file.
